Description
Book SynopsisFounded during the Gold Rush years, the Chinese community of San Francisco became the largest and most vibrant Chinatown in America. This is a detailed social and cultural history of the Chinese in San Francisco.
Trade Review"Chen gives us new insights into the San Francisco community, its inhabitants and their lifestyles, and trans-Pacific connections. . . . Highly recommended." --
Western Historical Quarterly"A rich and nuanced account of key events in San Francisco Chinatown." --
Choice"General audiences will enjoy this vivd depiction of Chinatown politics and insider perspectives on tourism. Experts will find this an illuminating . . . encounter with a tantalizing new array of sources." --
California History"This impressively researched study of San Francisco's Chinatown is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the history of the Chinese in America." --
The Journal of American History"Chin has produced one of the finest first-person narratives available on the Chinese experience in America, and it will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike. As K. Scott Wong notes,
Paper Son is much more than a story of one man's life in the United States; it "gives voice to thousands of paper sons."" --
Journal of American Ethnic History"This is a refreshing approach to this oft-studied period of Chinese immigration." --
International Migration Review"By utilizing a variety of sources in English and Chinese, the author provides a vivid picture of the cultural and social transformation of Chinese Americans in San Francisco over the course of the century." --
The Historian"By drawing on both Chinese- and English-language sources and by grounding his analysis in a thorough knowledge of social conditions in both China and California during this period (between the end of the California Gold Rush and the passage of the Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act), Chen has produced a robust and nuanced portrait of a dynamic and active diaspora community. He takes full advantage of a more sophisticated understanding of culture to document the ways in which Chinese Americans operated in and around the strictures of Confucian morality (and mainland Chinese nationalism) on the one hand and the various different segments of American society (missionaries, politicians, labor unions, and Euro-American capitalists) on the other. Chen also deals very well with issues such as gender and the "tourist trade" that established opportunities for European Americans to visit an exoticized and sensationalized Chinatown through the safety of a guided tour." --
China Review InternationalTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Revisiting the pre-emigration Old World Part I. The Rise of Chinese San Francisco: 2. The 'first city' locating Chinese San Francisco 3. The social landscape of Chinese San Francisco 4. 'China in America': the world of ah Quin 5. Collective identity Part II. The Arrival of a True Trans-Pacific Community: 6. A time of anger and a time of hope: the 1905 boycott 7. A changing mentality, 1906 to 1913 8. The Americanness of the Trans-Pacific community between the wars 9. Persistence of Trans-Pacific ties 10. The road to 1943 Conclusion.
